RE – ality 

I just can’t stop thinking about the transformative effect of consciously choosing to re-story our lives. Because the process of restoring/re-storying our lives is born from perspective, it can never be completely objective. We unconsciously pick and choose aspects of our life narrative that fit with the story we have in our heads about ourselves. 

Sometimes it is almost objectively true and sometimes we are miles off. But regardless of how far from reality your life narrative is, we really can’t live lives that we choose without evaluating the story that we want to believe about us, and want others to believe as well. Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I would say “The unexamined personal narrative is dangerous and will result in an unlived life.”

My experience is we will not dare to evaluate our narrative unless we value another re-word….REALITY! At some other time we will have a discussion about ultimate and relative truth and reality, but for our purposes today let’s just start with plain old reality. There are times that we energetically avoid the reality of our own lives. There are a lot of reasons we do this, but it is always done at our peril. That is why I love the quote below. “….there is always a great thirst for self forgetfulness, self distraction; he has a secret horror of everything that makes him feel his own littleness; the eternal, the infinite, perfection, therefore scare and terrify him. He wishes to approve himself, to love and to congratulate himself… “

Deadly Fear

Fear always leads us to distort reality, and reality is the only place we can live our true selves. Fear drives us to want to approve ourselves, to love and congratulate ourselves rather than taking those long honest looks at what really is. As we do this, as we embrace reality and honesty in this process, we are able to re-story ourselves in a conscious way.

It’s one of my greatest challenges in my life and I’m sure yours as well. But it leads to lives that overflow with goodness and love… And reality!

Jon